Two Years
by luvsanime02
Summary: One-shot. Roy has waited for two years.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, and this is for pleasure, not profit. I would never insult Arakawa Hiromu by implying otherwise.

**AN:** Rated T for language. Based on the 2003 anime. Also, please note the genres. (Edited 12.2013)

########

**Two Years** by luvsanime02

########

Ed was asleep. Then again, Ed was always asleep nowadays.

Roy sat on an extremely uncomfortable chair that he had long since grown used to and again contemplated slitting his wrists that night when he finally went home. He didn't really think he would ever go through with it. If nothing else, exhaustion usually kept him incapable of doing more than stumbling to his couch and collapsing until the nightmares took over. Still, the thought had grown in his mind, more so with every passing day, from a desperate act of despair into a clinical curiosity, and Roy knew that was a bad sign but couldn't quite bring himself to give a damn.

It was mental stress, he knew, not anything physical. Hell, Roy hadn't done more than was absolutely required of him since- Well, not in a long time anyway. He was alone. He always came here alone now. He and Lieutenant Hawkeye took shifts sitting in this piece of crap they called a chair, with some help occasionally from the others, most notably Miss Rockbell, but she couldn't always take sitting here and dealing with Ed's sleeping face.

"Ed," Roy rasped. He had to stop and work some saliva down his throat. Had he even spoken to anyone today? He couldn't remember, not that it mattered, really, in the long run.

The beeps were monotonous, and Roy hated them more than he hated the fact that Ed wouldn't wake up. At first, he had been relieved by the sound, the steady drum mimicking the beat of Ed's heart. Two years, part of his brain whined, screamed it in the back of his head, white noise by now. No, the relentless beeping was nothing more than mocking laughter these days.

"Ed," he called again, and it was a call. Every day, two years, and every goddamn day spent here, sometimes yelling, sometimes pleading, whispering, begging, but always, always calling.

In a way, Roy had never been so glad that he was Ed's superior officer than he had been that day, and all the weeks afterwards, when he'd still held onto a kind of hope that Ed would soon wake up. There had been no one to question why he visited. He had just been doing his duty for a fallen soldier in his command, after all. Roy had even admittedly gotten a perverse sense of justice out of blaming the whole thing on Scar. Some days, Roy spent the whole day sitting with Ed and trying to make his mind believe that the scarred Ishbalan really had been at fault.

Too bad all it took was looking back over at Ed for Roy to remember the truth, and then he'd spend the next ten minutes just trying to breathe and forget again.

They'd tried bringing everyone here at first, recounting stories and sharing gossip. When that had done nothing, things had grown silent, both in the office and in Ed's room. The optimistic voice in Roy's head left, and in its place came visions of that night replaying its macabre finale.

"Wake up," Roy whispered. Nothing but the sound of machines, and if Roy leaned very close, Ed's breathing.

Not for the first time, he wondered if Ed knew what had happened that night, knew the outcome and just didn't ever want to wake back up. In that, Roy certainly couldn't blame him. Other times, he wondered if the reason why Ed never responded was because Roy wasn't the right person. None of them were.

"Wake the fuck up, Ed!" he snarled, unable to keep his voice low, and he spent the next minute wondering if some nurse nearby would hear him and demand that he leave. Roy wondered why he didn't get up and walk out anyway, save what little was left of his sanity, but the voice in the back of his head let out a tremendous wail at the thought and Roy wanted to cry, he wanted to sob, really. The lump in his mouth choked him until he closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing in deeply through his nose.

Eyes open again, and why did it kill him every single time to see that Ed hadn't opened his own eyes in the meantime? It was getting late. Roy would be forced to leave soon, because superior officer or no there were visiting hours. Pushing to stay would raise too many questions, even if Roy never felt ready to pull himself from Ed's side.

Two years, and Ed was eighteen. Hell, he would be nineteen in a few months. Was he going to spend the whole rest of his life just sleeping? The tears started then, because Roy couldn't seem to go one damn day without them anymore, even if they were silent. He reached a shaky hand out, always ungloved now in case human contact was the trigger that woke Ed up, and Roy gently ran his index finger softly down Ed's cheek.

He didn't have the right to touch Ed like that, and as always, his hand yanked back as though burned. Still, the feeling would remain with him until the next day, a brand on his skin that no amount of hot water and soap could rinse away. Roy already knew he wouldn't mind being branded by Ed if he would just wake up, but this was a cruel mark. It was the burn of a harsh and bitter wind, chillingly cold, and Roy was a masochist, really. There was no other explanation.

There was no reason in the world, no excuse available to tell someone if they walked in right at that moment, right when Roy's lips were brushing against Ed's. They were dry but soft underneath the roughness, and Roy really had no right to do what he had just done. A conscious Ed would have kicked him in the balls and made them retract so far up they'd never be capable of coming back down before he stomped away. Maybe Roy really was a masochist, because he could think of nothing better than experiencing a kiss with Ed when he was awake.

Roy tilted his face up so the tears wouldn't blind his eyesight, looked at the wall instead of the young man in the bed who wouldn't wake up, no matter what Roy did. And he'd tried everything, he really had. Hell, they all had, but nothing was enough, nothing they'd done had ever been enough to make Ed truly happy.

"Ed," he called again, not daring to take his eyes off of the wall, "wake up. Please, please, wake the hell up. You can't do this to us, you damn well cannot do this to me, so please, please wake up."

Silence.

"Alphonse is furious with you, you know," he choked out, right before an indescribable noise left his throat, sounding nothing at all like a noise that could have come from a human being. "That's- It's why he won't come." Roy almost gagged, unable to continue, almost retched on the memory, on the burn of a scream deep inside that wanted nothing more than to tear itself free from his flesh. Instead, he bit down on the meaty portion of his thumb to drown out the keening sobs that he finally couldn't stop.

"Wake up!" he snapped, ripping his thumb out of his mouth, furious and so damn sick of this room and everything in it, especially himself. "Wake up and quit running! Ed!"

He leapt to his feet only to have the anger leave him as quickly as it had come, his body shaking and broken.

"You know, don't you?" he asked, voice flat and hoarse. No response. Roy paused by the bed, a terrible flashback of a night in the rain searching for his own atonement. A child lying on a bed swathed in bandages. Roy was shaking with remembrance of what they'd done, two little boys who didn't know any better because no one had told them. He'd wretched before he'd set fire to the gasping, clawing creature who had been breathing despite being inside out.

Roy had tried everything. Twofuckingyears and they'd all done everything they could, everything but say the truth out loud, because Roy was the only one who knew the whole truth. The dismal certainty that everything came full circle had never quite horrified him down to his bones as it did that night. He'd never felt as insignificant as he had then, knowing that he was nothing but a human being but that humans really were the worst creatures on the planet.

"You know it didn't work. He came back, you brought him back, but he was wrong. And I had no choice, again. You know that, don't you?" Roy gritted his teeth against the memory. Again, there was a body inside out, rasping breaths, heat and smoke and garbled screams, a struggle for life in something that couldn't speak but could clearly see. Only not from seven years ago. He'd give anything, even his own life, but not seven years ago, _two years ago_, and Roy would welcome Ed's retribution if he would only wake up.

Tears again. Roy didn't think he'd ever run out, didn't see how he could. "Ed," he called, and called again, repeating the name even softer, a prayer from an atheist to someone who hadn't answered for two years. Silence. "I'm leaving now."

Rain against the window, and he didn't have an umbrella. Not that it mattered. One last look while standing in the doorway and then he walked out, taking the back stairs to avoid someone looking at his face. Into the cold rain, and Roy contemplated taking a warm bath when he got home. He'd heard that your wrists bled out quicker in warm water and it would be interesting to see if that was true, not that he would be able to compare the two methods by himself. Ah, but he was tired. And that was a good thing, because he didn't have the right to take his own life anymore. It belonged to Edward Elric now, and Roy would let Ed do anything he wanted with it if he would just wake up.


End file.
